


Out of the Woods

by lalaietha



Category: Criminal Minds, Winnie-the-Pooh - Milne
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the mind retreats, it is pursued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Extra warning for possibly destroying your childhood.

_If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you._ \- A.A. Milne

*****

There might be fingerprints in the palm-prints on the door and the windowsill and some of the furniture, the CSI tech says. Hard to tell, it's all very smeared, they're working on it. They'll get working on the DNA off the blood, naturally, but even a rush-job will take at least a week and will probably be more use for evidence (if any of the blood isn't from the mother) than pursuit.

"How's the daughter?" Agent Prentiss asks, as SSAs Rossi and Hotchner step into the room.

"She's still in shock," SSA Hotchner replies, looking around. "She's not speaking, and the aunt is being understandably protective."

"She kicked you out?"

"If she'd had a baseball bat," SSA Rossi says, "she'd've used it."

"What do we have here?" Agent Prentiss turns to her team-leader's question and points to the wall.

"He tore the room apart," she says, "and there's blood over every single one of the stuffed animals, in decreasing amounts, like he was looking through them. Two or three of them have been torn apart as well."

SSA Morgan joins them, tapping a pen on his hand. "The unsub definitely encountered the parents at points of entry and defence," he says. "First the father at the back door, then the mother in the kitchen. It looks like she tried to go for a weapon."

"Tough lady," SSA Rossi remarks. "Any word on her?"

"Still in critical," Agent Prentiss replies.

"He brings the daughter here," SSA Hotchner says, drawing them back to the crime, "but he doesn't do her any harm. Why?"

SSA Morgan spreads his hand. "She's not a threat. From the three scenes so far, I'd put a guess that he only turns violent when people get in the way of his goal - whatever that is. When people try to stop him, he goes berserk."

"But then why bring the daughter here?" SSA Rossi asks. Before SSA Morgan can answer, Agent Prentiss is kneeling beside one of the destroyed toys, picking it up with careful gloved hands.

"Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, take a look at this," she says, and puts down the piece of the stuffed animal she's holding. She reaches over and takes another, and another, all three of the pathetically shredded things.

All three heads: all three the heads of stuffed bears.

"Maybe what he's looking for," she says. "Remember how at the first scene, we didn't see this level of anger?"

Morgan has crouched down beside her, Hotch and Rossi looking on. "No," Morgan agrees, "the room was torn apart but the damage to the toys was accidental."

"That child was into unicorns," Rossi observed. Agent Prentiss nods.

"And in the second room, one toy was destroyed to the point of being unrecognizable," she goes on. "And notice how the kids keep getting younger? It's not a pattern that would jump out, because he doesn't do anything to them, but - "

"He's looking for a stuffed bear," Hotch says, looking up and around. "The first two children were slightly too old to have big collections - Prentiss, take down everything you can about the kind of bear he's looking for. He's obviously not finding it." His voice carries the note of deliberate understatement.

 

*****

Rabbit wasn't being very helpful anymore, so Christopher sent him away to go check on Piglet. Not that he expected any sort of change, really, but mostly to make the fussing Rabbit go away. That was the problem with Rabbit. He thought he understood what was going on when he didn't, and then often got in the way.

Christopher washed his hands until the blood came out from under his fingernails. He splashed water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror, scrubbing at a couple of spatters on his cheek and neck. He took off his shirt and dumped it in the trash, all balled up. Falling back on the bed, arms outstretched, he stared up at the ceiling.

"It will all be fine," Tigger said, climbing with more grace than usual up on the bed beside him. Christopher didn't move at first, but when Tigger nuzzled in to his shoulder and licked at his throat, it all came undone again and Christopher turned into Tigger's fur and came apart for a bit.

"It will all be fine," Tigger kept saying. "Don't worry. Tiggers are very good trackers. We're getting very close now. Trust Tigger to know what to do." And he groomed at the side of Christopher's face, his neck and shoulder.

When Christopher had stopped crying this time, Kanga came over and said, "Now dear, you ought to eat something." She'd been crying again, he could see it. He didn't ask if there was any sign of Roo. If there had been, Kanga wouldn't've been crying. "We'll have to go to the Restaurant, dear."

Christopher couldn't remember when the Hundred Acre Wood had turned so dark. It wasn't like what he remembered. It must have been when _he'd_ gone missing. There hadn't been a restaurant before then, either. Just the houses, Eeyore's house, the river, the woods. Everything else was knew.

The restaurant had changed again, but at heart it was all the same. Too many people. There weren't supposed to be so many people in the Hundred Acre Wood.

He ordered a cheese sandwich and milk. Tigger paced around his table, eying everyone warily, ready to defend him if necessary. Kanga cooed and clucked when Christopher tried to say he wasn't hungry, and watched him with sharp eyes until he'd eaten it all and drunk all his milk.

Everything was fine until he tried to leave, and the waiter turned into an enemy and tried to kidnap him.

*****

Morgan reaches over and hits the button in the centre of the phone. "Hey, baby-girl, you're on speaker."

"_This was a baby-panda file,_" the phone says, and the voice sounds a little strained. "_Our distressed diner is one C. R. Milne -_"

"Wait," says Dr Reid, frowning at the speaker, "does 'C. R.' stand for - "

"_Christopher Robin, yes it does, but not that Christopher Robin. I'm guessing his parents thought the last name crossover was so cute they had to give him the rest of it. His mother was a collector, and apparently ran a site dedicated to 'Classic Pooh' - she didn't think much of the Disney version. Our friend C.R. has normal childhood records, achieved well but not fantastically in school, had one minor incident with the law over pot in the 80s, spent time in the Army, then came home, got into real estate and got married to one Barbara Korner. Their daughter Catherine was born in 2007 and they bought a house in rural Washington the same year because, and I quote from his blog post, 'the woods around it look like real woods, like a forest ought to look.'_"

"I'm sensing an ominous 'and then'," Prentiss observes, with a wince in her voice.

"_The Force is with to you today,_" the speaker confirms. "_That ominous 'but' is that due to faulty wiring in the basement, that house burned down two months ago._" There's a pause. "_The parents, wife and child were inside._"

"There's our stressor," Rossi observes.

"_Not all of it,_" and now the speaker's voice has lost its bounce. "_In addition, C.R. happened to come home from work just as the fire was . . . really getting going, and just as the neighbours had noticed. Witnesses saw him run into the house. He didn't come out until firefighters found him. He'd suffered major smoke inhalation but only superficial burns, but -_ " the speaker's pause is an audible wince, "_apparently firefighters found him where he would have had a direct view of where his father, carrying Catherine, had also succumbed to smoke and were being . . . cremated._"

SSA Hotchner's face has become particularly impenetrable, though SSA Rossi's glance does stray to him. The others are almost pointed in the way they don't look.

"How long was he in the hospital?" Morgan asks.

"_Two weeks_," the speaker replies. "_After that I have some credit-card purchases on eBay and at a couple specialty stores and yes, they're probably what you're thinking. I'm sending screen-shots to your handhelds now._"

SSA Jareau's has the best screen: as she passes it around, Dr Reid remarks, "They're all of a particular edition. Probably replicating whatever he had as a child, maybe something specifically lost in the fire."

"But there's one missing," Hotch finishes. "And he's broken sufficiently with reality to be looking anywhere he can. JJ, put together a press conference. I want Milne's face out there, and I want to be absolutely clear that if members of the public recognize him, they're not to threaten or obstruct him in any way, just to call the police."

JJ nods. "I'll make sure it's clear he's only dangerous if threatened," she says, and takes her PDA back before leaving the room.

"Baby-girl," Morgan says, as if at a sudden thought, "see if you can get a picture of the final part of that set. It's obviously hard to find and we might not be able to get it, but if we know what it looks like we might be able to advertise and draw him in before anyone else gets hurt."

"_On it_," the speaker says, and there is the click of disconnection.

"The monsters come to the Hundred Acre Wood," Rossi remarks. Nobody feels the need to reply.

*****

Christopher stopped at the door to Piglet's house, not sure if he was welcome. But Owl opened the door without comment, so Christopher ducked and stepped inside.

Piglet wasn't changed, much. He was still a sickly pale colour, and he was still curled up. Christopher sat on the bed and put a hand on the tiny curve of Piglet's body and said, "I'm sorry. I'm trying to find him."

Piglet didn't answer, but Christopher didn't expect him to.

Rabbit bustled in and after giving Christopher the once over remarked, "You're bleeding."

Then Christopher walked out of Piglet's house and back into the motel. He washed the blood out of his nose and from the side of his mouth. He got in the shower and sat down on the tile and saw Caty's face dissolving and crackling in the fire. He hugged his knees, naked in the tub, and rocked back and forth.

Tigger came in, then. First he laid his head on the side of the tub, peeking in around the curtain. Christopher said, "Piglet's not getting better. It's my fault. I can't do anything. And Roo's gone."

Tigger climbed into the tub with him and curled around him like only a big cat can, pulled him back with one paw. "It will be all right," said Tigger. "You see. Tiggers are great trackers. We're getting very much closer all the time. I think we will find him tomorrow. Then it will be all right."

Christopher stayed naked in the shower with Tigger for a long time. The promise of all-right-soon seems more real, he thought, than it would if he got up and tried to make soon into now.

*****

They choose Dr Reid as the least threatening, and the most likely to look like a collector. The shop's real owner is at home, because they can't ask another person to take that kind of risk. Dr Reid stays behind the counter, with JJ posing as a customer, and a SWAT team hidden in the wings.

When C.R. comes in, he is obvious. His eyes are hollow and his hair is unkempt. He walks with studied ease, like someone trying to convince themselves they're alright. His eyes dart all over the little shop. There is blood on his white sneakers, and the bruises from the struggle with the waiter now in the morgue.

He is as trusting as a child until, crossing into the back room, the thin blue line descends. Then he is -

An unsub in a violent psychotic break. Eventually, he is subdued. Dr Reid has to leave the room when C.R. starts sobbing, broken down, about Piglet dying; JJ follows him when the sobbing shifts to calling for Catherine.

SSA Hotchner is made of stone. SSA Rossi is wincing. There is a psychiatric team standing by, and sooner rather than later, C.R. Milne is quieting under the influence of the drugs.

"Mrs Harkness' condition is stable," Rossi remarks, as the ambulance leaves. "The doctors are hopeful for a full recovery."

SSA Hotchner nods. If one is familiar enough, it is purely evident that he is lost inside himself, in thought.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Home Before Dark (If There Is Ever a Tomorrow Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/192747) by [voodoochild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild)




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